Google is a great inspiration: We ask Evgeny Kovrizhen what inspires the Product Owner in software development and what skills are important in 2022?
Join the DZone community and get the full member experience. The Product Owner is the person responsible for the development of the product, its « father, » so to speak. Product Owner and Product Manager should not be confused — they are not equal positions. The Product Manager distributes the workload and tasks within the team, and is responsible for the management processes, while the Product Owner is responsible for the product itself. They see the end result and direct the team towards it. All stages of product creation are under the control of the PO. It’s important for them to see the final result and communicate their vision to the team. If the team moves in a different direction, nothing will work. Also, the PO must think about the value and usefulness of the product to the user. I spoke with Movavi Picverse PO, Evgeny Kovrizhin. Evgeny has 13 years of experience in PO and PM, and he’s willing to share his knowledge and expertise. About all this in the interview below. Hi Eugene! I’m glad to communicate with you. To begin with, tell us who the product owner is? How is he different from the project manager? Hi! It is worth noting that in some IT companies the PO and PM have almost no overlapping responsibilities. Rather, they complement each other. And there are still other places where one universal specialist does everything. There is no single correct approach. The only thing that matters is the outcome. In my opinion, the product owner is more analytical. He answers the questions « What for? » and « Why is it that way? » The PO must first find all the available information from different sources and then collect new data, if necessary. And here experience is of tremendous importance. Just getting a lot of numbers is not enough. You also need to be able to see insights, identify patterns, and draw conclusions. The project manager is your typical production line manager. He is responsible for the overall smooth development process and ensuring that releases have no problems. If the PO formulates the hypothesis, then the PM takes over after that. He writes up the terms of reference, prepares the design, handles the localization, carries out the synchronizations, etc. And the end output is reliable data for the PO. How long have you worked in this position? If you add up all of my experience in the roles of PO and PM, you get 13 years. Wow, that’s an impressive number! How did you come to this profession? Was it a deliberate choice, or did you happen upon it by chance? All of this was not accidental. My major in college was « Innovation management, » and I defended my thesis on this topic. I worked for 4 years in the field of instrumentation, prepared business plans, and carried out R&D. But I wanted quick results, and radio electronics is a slowly moving field. Therefore, in 2012, I made the decision to retrain and go into the IT field. I started working on B2B and B2C projects to improve my PO skills.
